Abstract
My aim in this paper is to ask a question, not to answer it. To answer it with confidence would require more concentrated study of Kant’s text than I have yet had time for. I have read his main ethical works, and formed some tentative conclusions which I shall diffidently state. I have also read some of his Englishspeaking disciples and would-be disciples, but not, I must admit, any of his German expositors except Leonard Nelson. My purpose in raising the question is to enlist the help of others in answering it.
...the supreme end, the happiness of all mankind. (KrV A851/B879/ NKS 665)
The law concerning punishment is a Categorical Imperative; and woe to him who rummages around in the winding paths of a theory of happiness, looking for some advantage to be gained by releasing the criminal from punishment or by reducing the amount of it .... (Rl. A196/B226, 6:331; Ladd, 100)
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References and Bibliography
Gr.: Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, trans. H.J. Paton, The Moral Law: Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, London: Hutchinson, 1948.
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More people have helped and encouraged me in writing this than I have space to list. I should like to mention especially Onora O’Neill and Ralph Walker and their writings; John Biro; and Rory Weiner and Ronnie Hawkins, who joined me in my search for relevant passages in Kant’s works. I owe a continuing debt to H. J. Paton, who first introduced me to Kant, and whose commentaries are still to be valued for their thoroughness, penetration and fairmindedness. I have found the following papers particularly useful. Alexy, R., ‘R.M. Hares Regeln des moralischen Argumentierens und L. Nelsons Abwägungsgesetz’, in P. Schröder, ed., Vernunft, Erkenntnis, Sittlichkeit Hamburg: Meiner, 1979.
Auxter, T., Kant’s Moral Teleology. Macon: Mercer University Press, 1982.
Cummiskey, D., ‘Kantian Consequentialism’, Ethics, 100 (1990), 586–615.
Harris, N.G.E., ‘Kantian Duties and Immoral Agents’, Kant-Studien, 83 (1992), 336–343.
Harrison, J., ‘Utilitarianism, Universalization, Heteronomy and Necessity or Unkantian Ethics’, in N. Potter and M. Timmons, eds., Morality and Universality. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1985.
Lo, P.-C., ‘A Critical Reevaluation of the Alleged “Empty Formalism” of Kantian Ethics’, Ethics, 91 (1981), 181–201.
Piper, A.M.S., ‘A Distinction without a Difference’, Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 7 (1982), 403–435.
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Hare, R.M. (1993). Could Kant Have Been a Utilitarian?. In: Dancy, R.M. (eds) Kant and Critique: New Essays in Honor of W.H. Werkmeister. Synthese Library, vol 227. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8179-0_4
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